Android 4.1 Jelly Bean has some pretty cool features, but it won't be out until July for Nexus phones, and probably much later for everyone else (after all, most of you are still waiting for Ice Cream Sandwich). You can get some of Jelly Bean's best features now, though, through apps in the Play Store. Here's how.

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Real-Time Notifications for Events, Places, and More

While Google Now can do a lot of things, its most exciting feature is the ability to track your upcoming calendar events and tell you when it's time to leave. Previously mentionedBounce brings this feature to Android already, at least for driving directions. Just link it up to your Google or Exchange calendar and it will calculate traffic data, then send you a notification when it's time for you to leave wherever you currently are.

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The rest of Bounce's features are a bit harder to duplicate, so you may have to rely on your faithful Places and Yelp apps for restaurant recommendations, ESPN for sports scores, and so on. The main thing Google Now brings is the ability to get notifications for all these things in one place, but it isn't too much of a hassle to set up a few different apps for only the features you want.

A Virtual Assistant with Smart Search Results

Google's Knowledge-Graph based search isn't super new to Android, since you can already see information about people, places, weather, and other things right on the mobile version of the site. It looks good, too—you can even click on the Knowledge Graph results to display more information on a separate page. Jelly Bean just streamlines this interface a little bit.

Where Jelly bean really makes search better is with its new voice assistant, and for that, we already have a few suggestions. Our favorite virtual assistant for Android is Vlingo, which can perform web searches, look up movie showtimes, buy tickets, book hotel rooms, search local businesses, and perform other specific searches using only your voice. Hit the link below to try it out, or if you don't like it, see what other options are out there in our app directory entry for virtual assistants.

More Informative, Customizable Notifications

Notifications are baked so deeply into the OS that it's hard to reproduce Jelly Bean's awesome new expandable notifications. However, if you're looking to boost your phone's notification powers, we recommend checking out previously mentionedNotifierPro. It gives you larger banners when you get a notification, with a contact image and the content of the incoming message, and you can tap it to go to the message in question. It isn't quite as awesome as Android's new notification drawer, but it's a little better than what Ice Cream Sandwich has baked in.

A Faster and Smoother Interface

You may not be able to get Google's spiffy "Project Butter" improvements until Jelly Bean, but that doesn't mean you can't speed up your phone. In fact, we've done a whole feature on how to speed up Android, and there are a ton of tweaks in there for rooted and non-rooted phones alike. You can try a new launcher (like one of these five favorites), uninstall apps and tone down your home screen, overclock your CPU, and flash a new, speedy ROM. You'd be surprised how far a few tweaks can get you in the speed department. Hit the link below to find out more.

Offline Voice Actions

Unfortunately, nearly all of Android's voice command apps require the internet, just like Android's built-in Voice Actions does. However, there is one app called Voice Control Without Internet that can do it without a connection. It doesn't have a ton of commands built-in, though, you have to create them yourself using a phonetic alphabet. It also can only perform a few actions: start an app, call a specific contact, or open a web site. If you constantly find yourself without a connection and need voice commands, it may be worth it to set a few up; otherwise, you may find it's too limited and more tedious than it's worth—in which case we recommend sticking with Vlingo.

Most of Jelly Bean's updates are baked pretty deeply into the OS, so it's hard to replicate them with third party apps. These apps should help hold you over, though, at least until Jelly Bean releases to a few more phones. Got another app that recreates one of Jelly Bean's best features? Let us know about it in the comments.